Go greener and save more too

Handle on Health

By Judith Allender

(Updated: Friday, April 25, 2008, 5:02 PM)

Last week I introduced you to some ways to go green and save money--some new and other old. This week I will expand on the ideas and give you two additional ways to help the planet and save money too.

As an average American you spend more than $1000 a year on holiday and personal gifts for family and friends. Before you drive to the big city or all over for more "stuff" for someone who probably has more stuff than they need already, think about alternatives:

Homemade gifts of foods, spice mixes, garments if you sew, mittens or sweaters if you knit or crochet. Homemade gifts from the children will delight grandparents and other older relatives. Help your young child develop her creative spirit and use household items to create wonderful gifts from paper plates, toilet tissue and paper towel rolls, and from all those stickers you receive from charitable organizations you've donated to. Older children can give the gift of time to do little chores for elders in and outside of their home.

Give gift certificates for concerts, movies, classes or music lessons.

Have a gift exchange among various groups such as family members or in groups you belong to instead of buying 10 gifts you just have to by one.

Give local products. If someone in your neighborhood grows luscious tomatoes or berries, give a basket or if your community produces wines, jams, or coffees, these can also make wonderful gifts.

Shop on line. This saves money on gasoline and the time you'd spend driving for the gift. Often free shipping is included or shop for lightweight gifts to save money on the shipping costs.

Select gifts that don't require batteries. If they do need a battery, supply it with the gift and make it a rechargeable battery.

Become familiar with and begin to love CFLs (compact fluorescent light bulbs). They may look funny, but hopefully our children will know no other shape of bulb and the ones we are familiar with will be the odd looking ones. Each CFL bulb that give off 60 watts of light only use 13 watts of energy and they last 10 times as long as an incandescent bulb. If you live in a fairly new house one or more of your bathrooms have six or eight lights going across the top of the bathroom mirror. If you substitute each with a CFL bulb you will save over 375 watts for eight bulbs. I know we keep the bathroom lights on second only to the kitchen what with one person taking a shower and shaving and then someone else taking a bath, etc. That one light that you keep on near your comfortable chair is used a lot, substitute it with a CFL bulb. And how about the garage or the kid's bedrooms? As a matter of fact, every light bulb in the house should be switched. I even have them in my chandelier in the kitchen. They are more expensive than incandescent bulbs, but I bought 30 of them when Home Depot was having a special sale for $.69 each awhile back -- look for similar sales before you buy. With just a little effort we can do our part to go green and help the planet get and stay well.